1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication-processing method on network-connected equipment and a receiving apparatus. More particularly, it relates to a communication-processing method and the like that are available for an information-receiving-and-transmitting system under which a user can view image information and listen to audio information from an external video apparatus by using a television receiver installed at any places other than a place where the external video apparatus is installed or a television receiver installed at a place where the user has gone to.
2. Description of Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-39781 has disclosed an audio-visual system (an information-receiving-and-transmitting system) that is available for viewing and listening to a broadcast program received by a television tuner on a real-time basis via a network channel such as the Internet with a user carrying a terminal that has a display device to a place where the user has gone to and controlling a video apparatus or the like installed in his or her home.
As the terminal, in addition to a special monitor, a personal computer (PC) such as a notebook computer and a game console such as PlayStation Portable (PSP), trademark, and the like are used. As the video apparatus, in addition to a television tuner, a digital versatile disc (DVD) player, a video tape recorder (VTR), a set-top box (STB) and the like are used. These external video apparatuses are controlled by a sending apparatus installed inside a room.
Accessing this sending apparatus with the terminal that is carried to a place where the user has gone to (his or her new place of appointment or a place where he or she is now staying), which is referred to as “on-the-road” hereinafter, through the Internet enables the sending apparatus itself to be controlled and/or any of the external video apparatuses to be controlled. This allows a user to enjoy a program recorded on the DVD by controlling the DVD player or the like at his or her on-the-road. This also allows a user to enjoy on a real-time basis at his or her on-the-road a broadcast program that is tuned by a tuner built in the sending apparatus by controlling the tuner and sending the tuned broadcast program to his or her on-the-road.
Suppose that the terminal is placed at a place other than a place where the sending apparatus is installed, for example, the external video apparatus and the sending apparatus are installed at a first floor of user's house and the terminal is used at a second floor thereof. Even if a family of the user views and listens to a program displayed on the television receiver installed in the first floor or reproduced by the external video apparatus also installed in the first floor, the user can view and listen to a program by using this information-receiving-and-transmitting system. For example, when the user carries the terminal in his or her room of the second floor of the user's house and controls the sending apparatus installed in the first floor thereof by the terminal, the user can view and listen to a program displayed on a television receiver in his or her room on a real-time basis or reproduced by an external video apparatus through the terminal.